“Deport the Criminals First” — Part Nine of an Ongoing Series: We Also Have to Keep the Criminal Aliens Out, or Deporting Them Won’t Do Any Good, as Shown by the Killing of Amy Kortlang
[“Deport the Criminals First” is a recurring feature on this blog, highlighting crimes committed by illegal immigrants — with a special focus on repeat offenders. I argue that, instead of arresting illegal immigrants who work hard for a living, we should use our limited immigration enforcement resources to target illegal immigrants who commit crimes in this country — especially violent crimes.]
An essential part of my plan to Deport the Criminals First is border security. Deporting criminals isn’t going to do us any good if the illegal criminals can just sneak back into the country. Blogger Digger illustrates this principle well in a post from last year:
An illegal alien, Rafael Ramirez Perez, hit and killed Amy Kortlang, 22, after causing another accident that injured three others while driving drunk last week, then he fled on foot. Perez has 4 prior arrests in the US and was deported in March, 2006 only to sneak back into the country and kill a young woman while driving drunk. This easily could have been prevented if there was actual border security and if local law enforcement could have actually done something the first time this dirtbag was arrested in this country.
Amy Kortlang had just finished moving into her own place and was a cosmetologist. The accident occurred on State Route 67 when Rafael Ramirez Perez was seen driving at a high speed and passing cars in the southbound lane. He clipped a few vehicles with a company owned white 2000 Ford F-150 truck causing an accident that injured 3 before plowing head-on into Amy Kortlang’s red Honda Civic killing her. After fleeing on foot, police tracked Perez down by contacting the registered owner of the vehicle, an unnamed company. This unnamed company should be fined and prosecuted as well for employing Perez and thus enabling this incident to occur.
Go to Digger’s post for the full run-down on Ramirez’s criminal history. Bottom line: he picked up three DUIs before he was finally deported. But deporting Ramirez didn’t do us any good, because he just came back — and killed Amy Kortlang.
Having thrown Ramirez out of the country, our government owed all of us a duty to keep him out. Its failure to do so cost Amy Kortlang her life.
What I can’t figure out is why the drunk driver so often survives the crash, while the sober victim in the other car dies. Does alcohol really increase your survival chances? Just wait till the liquor advertisers get wind of this!
dchamil (b71cc8) — 6/11/2007 @ 5:58 amWhy did that selfish woman get in the way of that poor fellow who was only in the U.S. to do jobs Americans won’t do? It sickens me to read of another bigoted attack by a nativist on an undocumented member of the American community, who just wants a better life for himself and his family. She was probably a donor to the racist Minutemen, ferchrissakes. God, she wrecked this poor fellow’s life.
/sarcasm
It is informative to noted that the gang of 14 and most of the Democrats are behind a move to render ‘criminal aliens’ – illegals who are felons, and those with immigration status who commit felonies – eligible for amnesty. Presently, criminal aliens are subject to deportation and removal in fairly short order, and the ALJs and courts are generally unsympathetic to the abundant procedural appeals they file. Ted Kennedy and Lindsey “you’re all racists” Graham would change the rule so that deportation wouldn’t really be an option for such individuals.
Given their consistent efforts in this area (voting rights for felons, no deportation for illegal alien felons) the DNC should probably just adopt an “A-1 Felons, A-OK” plank. Sure, it’s retro and has a dated, WWII sloganeering-flavor to it, but it’s easier to spit out than their muddled explantion of why it’s good, or my description of their position on the issue – ”
Al Maviva (89d0b6) — 6/11/2007 @ 6:00 am#$^% **&%#! #(%*@#ing *#$%@!!!”
Are these guys with multiple DUIs driving without a license, or on fake ID or what? I don’t understand how a person can escape the present DUI penalties.
Patricia (824fa1) — 6/11/2007 @ 7:00 amwhat you ought to do: put all these stories on a separate website, something like dailyalienhomicide.com. get your righty blogobuddies to point to it, ensuring a top-ten google ranking, and get them to contribute too, so you won’t have to do as much work. you could create a powerful single-subject, stand-alone advocacy vehicle to counteract all those stories about illegal aliens ending up in medical school and saving lives, and ultimately get to hear your own name mentioned in congressional committees just like glenn greenwald. good day sir!
assistant devil's advocate (5699e8) — 6/11/2007 @ 7:17 amGood people die young, assholes are immortal…
Scott Jacobs (90eabe) — 6/11/2007 @ 9:16 amI haven’t heard any such stories. But even if the stories exist, does that somehow justify illegal aliens?
Steverino (d27168) — 6/11/2007 @ 12:42 pmAny illegal alien who commits a felony should not be deported. They should serve about 20 years in the federal pen after any local time. Then they should be deported. The same should apply to a second misdemeanor conviction or to any offense ( including speeding ) for someone already deported once.
Few illegals are real problems. The ones that are should be penalized very severely.
Controlling the border is a wonderful idea that will never be realized as long as there are at least 41 Democrats and RINOs in the Senate. Too rich a source of potential votes!
Ken Hahn (8d1f53) — 6/11/2007 @ 1:35 pmHaving lost a close relative to a drunk driver I understand all too well the pain the friends and loved ones must grapple with. In my opinion drunk driving without causing bodily injury or property damage should be a mandatory one year sentence with three year license revocation. Second offense bumps to five years with permanent loss of license. Subsequent offenses would mean ten year sentences.
If bodily injury or death is involved that is a minimum 10 year sentence with permanent license revocation. Subsequent offense (regardless of injury or not would be 25 years minimum).
We must be willing to establish these types of sentences to deter ALL drunk driving incidents. The issue of his illegal status wouldn’t be an issue if tougher sentencing laws were on the books.
Border security might have stopped this one individual but let’s widen the scope to address a problem that goes well beyond one’s citizenship. I understand the connection that is being drawn but think a different emphasis is more appropriate.
voiceofreason63 (cfae0f) — 6/11/2007 @ 1:48 pmMy $0.02 on this issue…
The federal government needs to find it’s guts on this issue and start holding people accountable – the illegals, local and state governments that play the “sanctuary” card, employers that hire them and anyone else that turns a blind eye to this BS and allows it to happen.
Patterico has been doing an excellent job of posting these stories – of people that have lost their lives to illegals that are breaking the laws of our country.
I have a story of my own – out here at the Marine Base in 29 Palms, one of the contractors for the Military Housing section was using illegals to construct new buildings on base. One of the illegals fell off the roof of a house and was brought to the base hospital, where I was on duty. The Base Police, local authorities and ICE only had the illegal escorted off base, and suspended the base pass of the “supervisor” – no other repercussions for the contractor or the supervisors of the housing unit or the base police.
I pray every night that someone has the guts to take a definite stand on this issue and do the right thing…send the criminals back to their home countries and keep them out!
fmfnavydoc (affdec) — 6/11/2007 @ 5:34 pm#9
I agree that Patterico has been doing a good job of reporting stories many of us never hear and I think your story is compelling.
Along those lines another story: An illegal immigrant in Lexington was working for some company when he was killed on the job. The employer refused to compensate the family OR to even pay to have the body shipped to Mexico. Local churches had to take up the collection.
Enforcement hasn’t worked to date and not passing a good bill seems like a way to ensure the problem only gets worse. And if a bill is not passed and we begin dragging out the illegals and deporting them do you really suppose that the public will have the stomach to see more than a dozen “Ilian Gonzalez” videotapes (reasons are different I understand). I don’t think they will.
voiceofreason63 (cfae0f) — 6/11/2007 @ 5:47 pmIMHO too many people are chanting enforce the law, no amnesty ever, etc. This is not realistic. Some allowances need to be made. In its current form the bill only has a couple of sticking points that need to be ironed out before a reasonably good piece of legislation is passed to address the problem.
These series of tragedies just keep repeating themselves (History first repeats as tragedy, then farce).
Another Drew (8018ee) — 6/11/2007 @ 6:45 pmJust what has to happen before the Gov’t truly believes that the rabble is serious about resolving this problem?
If we weren’t so damn civilized (Yeh, Right!), we would resolve this situation in a fortnight.
Well, no one’s really going to do a study on this, but there’s a couple of factors at work, one being physics and the other being body relaxation.
The physics part is pretty simple – the drunk driver tends not to be decelerating when he or she has an accident, instead generally plowing straight through their target. So, unless their car is utterly destroyed, they’ll generally get less damage to themselves. In the case being discussed, a head-on between a Ford pickup versus a Honda Civic, the person in the Civic was probably toast no matter what the Ford driver’s BAC was.
The next part, relaxation, is also pretty straightforward. Most of us know, when you know there’s going to be an incipient accident, we tense up. Not so for the drunk, who is able to “go with the flow” of the wreck.
I’m just wondering why NBC 7/39 was so culturally insensitive as to put up the picture of the attractive gringa victim of the Noble Economic Refugee, who came to the Norte to kill people that the rest of the Norteamericanos would not kill.
Such a juxtaposition would surely fan the fires of racism, no?
The Other JD (044292) — 6/11/2007 @ 8:44 pm[…] “Deport the Criminals First” — Part Nine of an Ongoing Series: We Also Have to Keep the Crimin… […]
The Voices of Citizens to the Senate at Traction Control (acd9fb) — 6/11/2007 @ 8:49 pmAs Steverino pointed out, ada, your comment is a total non-sequitur, but even so, you must get your news from a different source than the rest of us. Please link to all these stories you speak of. Or did you just say that because in your huge liberal heart, you know it’s true?
CraigC (9b74e7) — 6/11/2007 @ 11:30 pmIn 1980, our federal and state prisons housed fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. By the end of 1999, these same prisons housed over 68,000 criminal aliens.1 Today, criminal aliens account for over 29 percent of prisoners in Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities and a higher share of all federal prison inmates.2*
I’m sure there are 68,000 new doctors who used to be illegal aliens.
CraigC (9b74e7) — 6/11/2007 @ 11:40 pmLink didn’t work.link
CraigC (9b74e7) — 6/11/2007 @ 11:41 pmProbably brain surgeons.
CraigC (9b74e7) — 6/11/2007 @ 11:44 pmOr perhaps ER doctors who treat people who’ve been maimed by illegal aliens. Talk about your irony!!
CraigC (9b74e7) — 6/11/2007 @ 11:45 pmcraigc, why don’t you go back and take another look at my comment? i was suggesting that patterico take this valuable series to a larger audience than just the usual mouth-breathing halfwits like yourself, and you have unintentionally bolstered my thesis.
assistant devil's advocate (5058ac) — 6/12/2007 @ 6:44 amGive him ether the death sentence or life in prison and tell mexico to GET A LIFE and i am wondering how many of these illegal aleins are driving in this country
krazy kagu (d982eb) — 6/12/2007 @ 7:20 amAda, given your track record here, one could be forgiven for assuming you were being sarcastic. And I may be a mouth-breathing half-wit, but A) in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and B) at least I know when to use reflexive pronouns correctly.
CraigC (9b74e7) — 6/12/2007 @ 11:15 am[…] note well: border enforcement is a key component of the strategy. As I have observed before, deporting individuals does no good if they don’t stay out. The local police chief in Prince […]
Hot Air » Blog Archive » Concern Over Illegal Alien Criminals: A Political Fad? The WaPo Suggests It Is (d4224a) — 9/7/2007 @ 6:25 am